this is for the arcade versions of the games right? What about for the console version of the games (with the loading screens and what not) with the actual bin/cues?
I know the bin/cues donāt work because those are the files I already had. Thereās a converted version of the game that runs on MAME that requires a specific CHD file, but Iāve been unable to find it.
I had to manually compress/convert all my img from NEO GEO CD to CHD using qmc2, its a UI for chdman, I couldnt find a batch process though, luckily there are less than 100 games to compress.
After you convert them to CHD they should load fine.
I grabbed qmc2 from here http://qmc2.batcom-it.net/index.php/download/ Is there a tutorial site anywhere that shows how to use it to convert img files?
Probably, but it`s really easy to convert, once you open it, go to >file>new project>in the drop down menu, choose āCreate a CD CHD from input fileā>choose your img file, it must be in a supported format>choose the output file, then click in the cogs icon, it should convert/compress your NEO GEO CD image to CHD if itās in a supported format.
when choosing the image file, do we choose the main bin or the cue sheet?
Iāve never tried converting bin/cue to chd, so I canāt comment on whether the files will be recognized by MAME/MESS. I will say if you google āneo cd chdā you should be able to find an archive that your looking for.
that question was to aorin1. Just needed confirmation for his step in āchoosing the img fileā.
Not sure what Iām doing wrong, but every time I try, I get a āFailed to startā Error.
i see in the program, must load cue file. K, got that. Now Iām getting the error that ZForceFFC is getting.
Edit, oh I see. When the program comes on, that first box with the exclamation point, point it to the chdman.exe in your standalone mame folder. Then hit apply. Error will be gone.
But yeah, now iām running into all of the problems on the previous page soā¦
Yeah Iām not exactly sure which file I should be using for the conversion.
What files your NEO GEO CD set is composed of? I remember I had them in img,cue,bin,ccd, I probably chose the cue file to compile the CHD, or IMG, Iām sorry if Iām not giving more details, itās because my short memory is like a RAM memory, once itās replaced by a newer information, the older ones goes into oblivion.
Anyway, try putting the drop-down window to show all files, even if img is not supported, try that.
OK I finally got a hold of the proper CHD sets, and was finally able to launch Crossed Swords 2. I then decided to also try and get Ironclad and Zintrick to work. I created empty zip files according to the filename the hash file said, and tried running them, now not only does launching either of those make Retroarch crash, but now Crossed Swords 2 also crashes. I am not really sure what I might have done to cause them all to stop working properly.
You donāt need empty zip files to make NEO GEO CD games to run in MAME/MESS core, I only have CHD files, and three NEO GEO CD/NEO GEO AES bios in my CHDs folder
Make sure you have In Media Type - set Cdrm, this options is available in MAME/MESS core once you load a game, go to quick menu/options.
Your bioses should have the following files:
neocd.zip - 210kb neocdz.zip - 209kb neogeo.zip - 1,556 kb
Also make sure your CHDs are inside a folder named NEOCDZ.
Following these steps and the first posts, youāll manage to make NEO GEO CD games work fine in Retroarch.
OK I got it, I was trying to run in MAME 2014 which was crashing, instead of regular MAME. I think I got them mixed up at some point along with MESS 2014. Thanks everyone for your assistance 
Is it better to use one core vs the other for NGCD games in everyoneās general experience?
I just use the regular MAME core for NEO GEO CD games and MAME in general.
I got this running in android
Maybe a question for the libretro folks: Would it be possible to hardcode the āpopularā machine types into a mame / mess core, similar to fbalpha2012_neogeo?
It would be beneficial if there were additional cores like mess2014_coleco, mame_neogeocdz, mess2014_a800, etc. That would hard code the hash, force the machine type so roms could be in whatever folder the user wanted, and generally make it easier for a user to see which core would launch their game correctly. Thoughts?
Honestly it s a huge work and then we have to create toon of system.mak file. And deal with many new rules to add to builbot. For my opinion it is too much works for the result. That said , users can achieve it on their own. You can lookat the tiny.mak (need also to tweak makefile to add rule for it). Actually wirh mame2014 core if you build with SUBTARGET=tiny you will add at the end a mame core with only some drivers(the tiny one+cps1+cps2+neogeo) in a max 20mo core file. I done it for emscripten purpose but work for all arch.
